Title Pending: Have Something To Say? Say It All

Later this year, I’ll release a short book I’m calling “Title Pending: Things I Think About When I Make Stuff.” Between now and then, I’m posting previews of the book here at this blog and elsewhere, like the Art House America blog or On Pop Theology. Below is the third installation (the first is here, the second here).

I don’t believe, at all, that every piece of art needs to make some kind of statement. But, in the event that part of what you want to do with your artwork is to say something you think is worth saying, then say it entirely. Write it all the way out. Sing it as loudly as you can. Paint it as broadly as your arms will allow. And if you do it all with both excellence and courage, I guarantee there is an audience willing to receive, engage and consider your idea or your critique,.. even if they disagree.

Give your readers, viewers or listeners the credit they deserve. They are whole persons whose lives are as nuanced and conflicted as yours. They can handle you being human and having human passions. In fact, they may need your art to be angled and slant and nuanced and conflicted so that it might help them give voice and shape to the lives your work touches.